"It is not Madame Steno," thought Julien; "she has related all herself to
her lover. I knew a similar case. But it involved degraded Parisians,
not a Dogesse of the sixteenth century found intact in the Venice of
today, like a flower of that period preserved. Let us strike her off.
Let us strike off, too, Madame Gorka, the truthful creature who could not
even condescend to the smallest lie for a trinket which she desires. It
is that which renders her so easily deceived. What irony!.... Let us
strike off Florent. He would allow himself to be killed, if necessary,
like a Mameluke at the door of the room where his genial brother-in-law
was dallying with the Countess.... Let us strike off the American
himself. I have met such a case, a lover weary of a mistress, denouncing
himself to her in order to be freed from his love-affair. But he was a
roue, and had nothing in common with this booby, who has a talent for
painting as an elephant has a trunk--what irony! He married this
octoroon to have money. But it was a base act which freed him from
commerce, and permitted him to paint all he wanted, as he wanted.
He allows Steno to love him because she is diabolically pretty,
notwithstanding her forty years, and then she is, in spite of all, a real
noblewoman, which flattered him. He has not one dollar's-worth of moral
delicacy in his heart. But he has an abundance of knavery.... Let us,
too, strike out his wife. She is such a veritable slave whom the mere
presence of a white person annihilates to such a degree that she dares
not look her husband in the face.... It is not Hafner. The sly fox is
capable of doing anything by cunning, but is he capable of undertaking a
useless and dangerous piece of rascality? Never.... Fanny is a saint
escaped from the Golden Legend, no matter what Montfanon thinks! I have
now reviewed the entire coterie.... I was about to forget Alba.... It
is too absurd even to think of her.... Too absurd? Why?"